Japanese steel firm to build plant in Indonesia

Japan’s Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. will build a steel
plant on the outskirts of Jakarta, Indonesia to manufacture
automotive-use steel sheet, under an agreement with the Indonesian
state-owned company Krakatau Steel.

The pair will invest about 30
billion JPY for the plant with an annual output capacity of 400,000
tonnes of product. It is to become operational in 2016, according to
Nippon Steel.

The project, fifth of its kind in Asia invested by
Nippon Steel, aims to meet the increasing demand of manufacturing
automobiles in Indonesia.
Nippon Steel said its capacity of
producing automotive-use steel sheet in Asia is estimated to around 5
million tonnes a year, and the group plans to raise its capacity in
domestic factories by 60 percent in the coming time.

At the same
time, another Japanese steel producer -JFE Steel- also intends to
invest 3 billion JPY in building its plant in Indonesia.

Earlier, Posco from the Republic of Korea operated its factory in the Southeast Asian nation from late 2013. -VNA